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Staartsäit / Albumen / Schlagwuert civil rights 51
- ADAPT (1795)
Mainstream Magazine, April 1993 issue [This article continues in ADAPT 1974, but is included here in its entirety for easier reading.] Photo: Wade Blank, in sneakers, jeans and an ADAPT T-shirt over a long sleeved shirt, walks with other ADAPTers in a march down a city street. Beside him is George Roberts, behind George is Diane Coleman and behind her is Anita Cameron. Behind Wade's left side is Chris Hronis, and behind him Bill Henning carries a banner. Caption for picture reads: Wade Blank takes to the streets of San Francisco with ADAPT in October 1992 Title: Wade Blank, 1940 to 1993 Co founder of Adapt [sic] Pursued A Vision Of Justice For People With Disabilities By Laura Hershey When a college friend dared Wade Blank to march with Martin Luther King. Jr. in Selma, Alabama. Wade didn't know what to expect. However, the experience imbued him with a vision of civil rights which he would never forget. Later. working in the youth wing of a nursing home, he understood clearly that the same issues, freedom. equality, and justice, were at stake for people with severe disabilities. Throughout his life, Wade Blank strove to obtain independent living opportunities and equal access for people who had lone been denied these basic civil rights. Wade died at age 52 on Feb. l5. I993. in a swimming accident in Todos Santos, Mexico, where he was vacationing with his family. He was trying to save his 8 year old son. Lincoln. An undertow made the rescue impossible; both Wade and Lincoln drowned. Wade is survived by his wife, Mollie; his daughter. Caitlin, 6; and his adopted daughter, Heather, 22, who has a disability. All members of the Blank family were actively involved in the disability rights movements that Wade helped launch. On Feb. 2l. a memorial service drew 1,100 people to Denver's Radisson Hotel. the site of the first national protest by American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, or ADAPT. the grass roots, direct action disability rights movement Wade co-founded. Wade and Lincoln were remembered as spirited, loving people committed to social change. A neighbor remembered Wade helping her fix a broken lock late one night; she recalled Lincoln leading other children in a rousing chant during a make-believe demonstration on his front porch. Wade's colleague Shel Trapp quipped. “lf Heaven is inaccessible. God is in big trouble." Wade believed in the leadership potential of even the most severely disabled activists. He pushed his followers to take charge of the movement, even when it would have been easier to dominate it himself. His ability to alternate between a directive role and a supportive role from manager to attendant. from mentor to messenger kept Wade close to his people. lt also had a tactical value: At a 1991 demonstration in Colorado. police were vainly searching for someone to hold responsible for several dozen unstoppable wheelchair wielding protesters. An officer asked Wade. “Are you in charge here?" "No." Wade answered. “I just help people go to the bathroom." Drawing on his background as a pastor of a diverse and active parish, Wade taught the value of community. He brought people together across disabilities, classes, races, ideologies and other differences. ln ADAPT. Wade created a true community. welcoming anyone committed to the movement's vision of justice. During national actions, people from across the country exchange experiences and expertise. offer each other encouragement and strength, meet friends and even start romances. Just getting to the sites of national protests requires enormous energy expenditures and a myriad of logistical details for people with disabilities, many of whom use wheelchairs. On long. grueling caravan drives across country. Wade met those needs with humor and gentleness. He drove tirelessly, navigated, did attendant care, pumped gas, made fast food runs, hauled suitcases and battery chargers, repaired wheelchairs, even brought coffee to everyone’s rooms in the mornings. When we grew exhausted and short-tempered. he buoyed us with affectionate teasing and terrible, recycled puns. He kept the troops moving, both on the road and during protests. with encouragement, bad jokes. and calm confidence. Protests will be tougher without Wade's bold creativity, irrepressible sense of humor, and reassuring presence. But the movement won’t die with Wade. He knew that. “King‘s organization’s mistake was that they hung it all around his neck,” he told an interviewer last November. “What happened to the movement? It lost its definition. King gave it its definition. If I would get knocked off tomorrow or die of a heart attack, it wouldn’t slow us down a bit. We know what we’re about, and the movement would go on with the same intensity.” In 1971, Rev. Wade Blank arrived in Denver after 10 years of preaching and organizing in the Midwest. He had graduate degrees in divinity and was an ordained Presbyterian minister. But his radical activities had gotten him in trouble with the church authorities and he had been fired from his parish. His experiences had included hosting meetings of the Kent State chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); helping Vietnam War draftees flee to Canada; and organizing African American youths to demand community water and sewage systems in conservative Twinsburg Heights, OH. Wade was burned out and not sure what he wanted to do next. He ended up at Denver’s Heritage House nursing home, where he tried to make institutional life bearable for young disabled people. He quickly realized that such confinement could never be acceptable. He was fired from his job, but stayed in touch with several of the young residents. Eventually he helped 11 of them move into their own apartments. At first, Wade himself provided all his clients’ attendant care, until finally the State of Colorado agreed to fund home health care services for people living independently. This was the beginning of the Atlantis Community (named for a forgotten continent), today a thriving independent living center in Denver. Even in their newly won freedom, the Atlantis founders discovered barriers to independence all around them. Public buses were inaccessible, so the community members became activists. One July 5, 1978, with Wade’s support and guidance, 19 disabled people blocked buses overnight in the busy intersection at Colfax and Broadway to demonstrate their demand for lifts on buses. Protests continued until, in June 1983, Denver committed itself to a fully accessible bus system. Last summer, the city laid a plaque at the Colfax-Broadway intersection, engraved with the 19 activists’ names. Characteristically downplaying his own key role in the demonstration, Wade asked that his name not appear on the plaque. Wade once described his role this way: “That’s what my job is, to assist my people in gaining the power to make change." Throughout his years of service to “my people,” Wade worked to build strength and leadership among disability activists. Emboldened by success, the Denver activists carried their demands for bus access to the entire nation. Wade‘s vigorous encouragement and organizing skills had helped to transform a group of powerless nursing home "patients" into a band of effective revolutionaries. Now that same savvy spirit found a warm reception among disabled people who were tired of segregation and exclusion. A new movement was born, with the fitting acronym ADAPT, or American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation. The first national ADAPT protest took place at the Radisson in October, 1983. The nation's transit officials were meeting at the hotel when disabled protesters blocked every entrance. Similar demonstrations throughout the country, involving the blocking of hotels, office buildings, and buses, focused public attention on the fact that access to transportation was a basic civil right denied to people with disabilities. Subsequent protests refined ADAPT ’s brand of protest. With his 1960s civil rights experience, Wade taught his followers how to stage protests that were non violent but direct and confrontational. In the hands of people with severe disabilities, these tactics were astonishingly effective. ADAPT activists baffled police officers, and filled jail cells, in dozens of cities. The public, and ultimately the powers that be, had to respond. The idea of people with severe disabilities, and their allies (including Wade), risking arrest again and again some as many as 20 or 30 times proved not only impressive, but persuasive. After nearly a decade of such protests, ADAPT achieved its goals for the nation’s transit systems. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) included mandates for bus and rail services. All new bus purchases must now be lift equipped, just as Wade and his cohorts had demanded. But before it passed, the ADA became stalled in the U.S. Senate and was in danger of being defeated or weakened by amendments. Wade organized a “Wheels of Justice” campaign that included three days of marching, demonstrating, and civil disobedience. Some 150 people were arrested in the Capitol rotunda. Within a few weeks, the ADA passed the full Senate, and was signed into law by President Bush on July 26, 1990. But Wade and ADAPT spent little time celebrating. They knew there was still much to be done. With over a million people still languishing in nursing homes, ADAPT immediately launched its new campaign, demanding the shifting of federal Medicare/Medicaid funds from nursing homes to in home attendant services that would allow people disabled by birth, accident, illness, or age to live independently. The meaning of the acronym, ADAPT, did just that it adapted. The letters now stand for American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today. The old battle cry, “We Will Ride!,“ was replaced with a new one: “Free Our People NOW!” In a recent interview, Wade said, “My whole commitment in life is to eradicate those nursing homes, to destroy them, bring them down. We will.” He didn’t live to see that goal realized, but he shared that vision with hundreds of others. In the process he helped create a movement that will continue the fight to “Free Our People.” Laura Hershey, freelance writer and poet, is an ADAPT activist. Inserted in box: A memorial will be held May 9, I993 at the Lincoln Memorial as part of an ADAPT action in Washington DC. Contributions may be sent to The Family of Wade Blank Memorial Fund at The First National Bank of Denver, 300 S. Federal Blvd., Denver, CO 80206. A trust fund has also been established in the name of Wade Blank. Contributions can be sent to Atlantis/ADAPT c/o Evan Kemp, 2500 Q St. N.W I21, Washington, DC 20007. - ADAPT (173)
The Washington Post, Friday, September 28, 1934 PHOTO (by Harry Naltchayan, The Washington Post): Three men in wheelchairs (left to right - Claude Holcomb, Bob Conrad, and Mike Auberger) discuss something as they block two Metro buses sitting next to each other. Caption reads: Handicapped demonstrators block Metrobuses on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. [Headline] Buses Captured In Demonstration By Handicapped By Ronald Kessler, Washington Post Staff Writer A dozen handicapped protesters, some in wheelchairs and others walking with crutches or canes, stopped rush-hour traffic in front of the White House yesterday by "capturing" seven Metrobuses. The hour-long protest was aimed at demonstrating the lack of access to buses that handicapped persons endure both locally and nationwide. The demonstrators agreed to release the buses—by abandoning their position in front of the vehicles—only after Metro General Manager Carmen E. Turner agreed to meet with them. The demonstrators. representing a national group called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, said they wanted all new Metrobuses to be equipped with power equipment that lifts wheelchairs into buses. AIso, they said, they want the Department of Transportation to allocate more funds for equipping buses nationwide with the lifts. "We say it's a civil right, just as they denied black people the right to get on a bus and now allow them access." said Mike Auberger of Denver, a spokesman for the group. “It's a right like being able to go to school." Presently, Metro schedules a limited number of runs with buses equipped with lifts, or dispatches the buses if a handicapped person requests on the day before. The protesters said a lift costs $8,000 on a $180,000 new bus. an amount they said is far below the cost of an air conditioner. "I’ve called for buses, and they break down said Ronald L. Smith, who sat in a wheelchair in front of the Old Executive Office Building. "We want all the buses to be for the handicapped." Beverly Silverburg, director of public affairs for Metro, said last night that the group will meet with Assistant General Manager Theodore Weigle and Turner "will probably meet with the group." The protest began at 1:15 p.m., when the demonstrators announced to reporters that they were going to surround the next bus that stopped in front of the White House. It happened to be one marked "Brookland." Several demonstrators lay down on the street or leaned against the front of the bus while supporting themselves on crutches. A second contingent blocked another bus that had just pulled up behind the first. "What's going on?" Theodore R. Wright, the driver of the Brookland bus, said to no one in particular. The protesters told him they wanted to meet with Turner to present their grievances. As riders disembarked, Wright called his dispatcher. "I'm looking at two buses that are blocked," he said "They want Carmen Turner." Wright said he once drove a bus equipped with a power lift for six months and never had a handicapped rider. But he added, "l sympathize with these people. Probably they have some legitimate beefs." As the impasse dragged on, the protesters took over a third bus as it was trying to pass the first two. Police persuaded the protesters to let it go, but they became more agitated and began blocking buses across the street in front of Lafayette Square. By 5 p.m., police had cordoned off the section of Pennsylvania Avenue NW in front of the White House, disrupting rush-hour traffic in all directions. Metro supervisors came and went, and one protester was taken to George Washington Hospital after he fell off his wheelchair. By 5:30 p.m., the protesters had corralled seven buses, would-be passengers were complaining that they could not find a bus, and bus drivers were lining the streets. At 5:35 pm., D.C. Police Lt. W.R. Sarvis passed the word that Turner had agreed to the meeting. The demonstrators uttered whoops of joy and hugged each other. “No confrontations, no problems," said Sarvis. The protesters said they also plan to present their demands to the American Public Transit Association, which meets here Sunday. - ADAPT (16)
The Denver Post - Sunday June 1, 1975 PHOTO by John Prieto: A woman (Linda Chism) sits in a wheelchair with her legs extended out in front of her and covered by a blanket. Her shoulders are covered by a jacket. She has a lap board on her chair and her purse/bag is resting on it. She is looking ahead. To her left sits a man (Glenn Kopp) in a wheelchair. He has longish hair, a goatee and is wearing glasses. He looks down slightly, as if listening. In the front bottom corner of the picture someone's arm is visible. Caption reads: Linda Chism and Glenn Kopp discuss Independent-Living Idea They are in living room of apartment at the Las Casitas complex. [Headline] Independence from Nursing Homes - Atlantis' Handicapped Move to New Life by Pat Afzal On the surface, this Sunday is just a moving day for eight Denver area young men and women. Underneath, however, the day emerges as a first, precious taste of freedom for them. They are severely handicapped and will move out of nursing homes Sunday into their own apartments and have a crack at independent living. Sunday will be, oh .... like Christmas,” says wheelchair-bound Glenn Kopp, co-executive director of the Atlantis Community, Inc. The group is leasing the apartments where the young adults will live. Linda Chism, Atlantis' treasurer-accountant, likens the moving experience to “a flower opening up. We don't know how it's going to work out for sure. Things will sort of evolve." Their excitement seems normal because they're helping others embark on a new experience. Then they begin to talk about why the independent-living idea got going. And their comments harden into strong indictments against the institutional way of life for the young handicapped. "You know about civil rights?," Kopp asks a reporter. "Well, a handicapped person in an institution has no civil rights." "That statement about race, creed and color - well, it doesn't apply to handicapped people. We're left out of it." Kopp, who was worked in a Denver area nursing home said that when residents there went against the rules, a punishment was to take their electric wheel chairs away. “That's (the chairs) your freedom, you’re movement. Without it, you can't get around." [Subheading] Rule Ridiculed He ridiculed a rule that said the handicapped had to be in bed by 9 p.m. “Why should a grown man have to go to bed at 9 o’clock?" he asks. “It's a so very dehumanizing way to live, to say the least,” Ms. Chism adds. “You’re without privacy. All your dignity is just gone. You're not recognized as a person. You're a patient and that's it.” Nursing homes "like a lot of young people around, tooling around in their wheel chairs,” Kopp says. “lt adds an air of something nicer than just a lot of people sitting around.” By the same token, there isn't a lot of willingness to give the young people the freedom they feel and need, Kopp says. Those who are “lucky enough to have a taste of living normally really get depressed. It can be a very sad thing." It was soon after Kopp stopped working for the nursing home in Denver that he and a friend — Wade Blank — decided that “there's gotta be a better way to live. There has to be some better options." They slowly began to attract verbal, but not much monetary, support for their idea and Atlantis Community, Inc., was born. Eventually the group wants to build a 140-unit apartment complex for the severely handicapped. Right now, however, their first project is the seven apartment units in Las Casitas complex on Denver's west side where the eight young people will be moving Sunday. The apartments are on the western edge of a larger apartment complex in the 1200 block of Federal Boulavard. Credit for helping to make Atlantis’ dream a reality goes to Dr. Henry A. Foley, state director of social services, and John Helm of the Denver Housing Authority, Kopp said. “We went in cold to Dr. Foley, and he got us $3,000 seed money to apply to a larger grant," Kopp said. The grant, from the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, made possible almost $20,000 in renovations at the Las Casitas apartments. Helm told them about the apartment vacancies. The new tenants will live on welfare and social service payments, and visiting nurses and on-site attendants will help take care of their medical and personal needs. On July 1, six other tenants will move in. Those slated for the Sunday move are “frightened, understandably,” Ms. Chism says. “When you've lived in an nursing home much of your life, you’re naturally apprehensive about living on your own." She said police were worried about the safety of the tenants because the apartments are in a higher-crime area. “But they (police) don't realize that in an institution, you don’t own anything for very long because it’s stolen," Kopp said. [Headline] Meetings Encouraging Meetings with a tenant union at Las Casitas have been encouraging, he added, and residents already living there have welcomed the idea of their new neighbors. The problem now is for Atlantis Community to stay alive financially so other young handicapped adults also can experience the freedom of independent living. And there are immediate problems like finding things such as kitchen utensils, bed linen and furniture to make the Las Casitas like home. But optimism about the future is apparent. “When you think of how far we've come in a year," Ms. Chism says. “I'd say there's a lot more to come from Atlantis." - ADAPT (148)
Name of newspaper illegible Los Angeles Times? November 19,1984 Handicapped Stage Protests to Publicize Transportation Needs by Miles Harvey, Times Staff Writer PHOTO: Mary Frampton / Los Angeles Times A tidy looking woman in pants and a vest, with a slight smile on her face, sits in a manual wheelchair on a bus. She is sitting in the accessible doorway, the access symbol visible on the side of the doorway. Below and beneath her is a metal panel, like the barrier on some lifts that keeps the person from rolling off the front of the lift. Caption reads: Barbara Trigg rides a hydraulic lift onto a Los Angeles bus. Article reads: Washington -- It was a scene reminiscent of the 1960s civil rights demonstrations as angry protesters chanted slogans, picketed the White House and stopped traffic before they were finally dragged away by police. And the series of confrontations that ended with 27 arrests last month seemed to come down to a similar central issue— the right to sit on a bus, to have full access to public transportation. There was one striking difference, however. Unlike Rosa Parks and the black civil rights activist who battered down the Jim Crow barriers in the South, these protesters were in wheelchairs, and their goal was equal access for the physically handicapped. “It's a civil right to be able to ride public transportation," said Julia Haraksin, a wheelchair-bound Los Angeles resident who participated in the demonstrations. “In the ‘60s, the blacks had to ride in the back—and we can't even get on the buses." New, Radical Tactics Organizations representing handicapped persons long have urged Washington to require that new buses and rail systems built with funds from the Department of Transportation's Urban Mass Transportation Administration be equipped to accommodate handicapped riders. But Haraksin and other handicapped individuals like her now are beginning to press the old arguments with new, more radical tactics. Frustrated by years of negotiating, lobbying in Washington, going through the courts and staging non-confrontational protests, some members of the handicapped community now are resorting more actively to confrontations and civil disobedience. Thus, early in October, 100 members of a newly formed coalition called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit confronted a national meeting of city transportation heads here, using the kind of civil disobedience tactics used 30 years earlier by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Protesters were arrested when they blocked entrances and buses of those attending the American Public Transit Assn. convention. The strategy was to physically be a barrier because handicapped people have to face barriers all their lives," Wade Blank, a founder of Denver-based ADAPT said. Calling the protests here " Selma," leaders of ADAPT claimed victory and promised that their struggle has only begun. They already are focusing their efforts on what they hope will be a larger demonstration at the next meeting of the American Public Transportation Assn. a year from now in Los Angeles. But they and their cause may be in for a tough battle. Their opposition comes from the Reagan Administration, from many city governments and even from within the handicapped community. And as public attention focuses on the underlying budget choices involved, the opposition may swell with the addition of taxpayers concerned about the possible costs of a national full-access program. ADAPT argues that a legal right to full access for the handicapped already exists. Federal law states that Urban Mass Transportation Administration funds — which account for about 80% of the costs of new and replacement equipment in most municipal transportation systems—cannot be spent on programs that discriminate against, or exclude, the handicapped. The law does not make clear, however, whether handicapped persons must be provided with access to regular bus lines or whether they can instead be provided with alternative transportation systems. Nor does it indicate who should make that decision. Cities Make Decisions Current Transportation Department policy, which is strongly supported by the American Public Transportation Assn., allows each city to make its own decision on what type of transportation it will provide for the handicapped. This is in sharp contrast with Carter Administration policy, which in 1979 interpreted federal regulation to mean full access. Members of ADAPT, opposing the separate-but-equal philosophy of paratransit argue that it does not meet the needs of the handicapped and that it is inherently discriminatory. "It segregates the disabled people from the able-bodied community," Mike Auberger, an organizer for ADAPT, said. Because paratrasit requires advanced scheduling [unreadable] a ride is needed, he said, “you have to schedule your life according to the system. No one else has to do that. That shows the inequality right there." He and other members of ADAPT contend that because of long waiting lists for paratransit, some cities refuse to offer the service to new users - thus cutting off thousands of handicapped persons from any public transportation. Transit authorities, on the other hand, argue that full access can be too expensive, given the low percentage of handicapped riders in many cities. Lift-fitted buses cost an estimated $8,000 to $10,000 more than regular buses. Furthermore, lift systems are often unreliable and time-consuming to operate and maintain, transit administrators say. In Denver, for example, the transportation district has spent $63 million to purchase or retrofit buses with lifts. 80% of which was paid for by the federal government, according to spokesman Gene Towne. Since it started mainline access in 1982, the district has spent close to $1 million in maintenance of the lifts and expects to spend an additional $900,000 this year. Yet of the district's total annual ridership of 38 million, only 12,000 use the lifts, according to Towne. ADAPT counters that the issue is not cost but civil liberties. “In America we have a way of hiding, our prejudices with pragmatism," said Blank, a Presbyterian minister and veteran of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s who now supports handicapped activists. Variety of Approaches Across the country, cities are using a variety of approaches to the problems of providing mass transit for the handicapped. In Los Angeles, mainline access is required by state law. Although 1,850 of the Southern California Rapid Transit District‘s 2,400 buses are fitted with wheelchair lifts some local advocates charge that the RTD gives only "lip service" to access, complaining of broken lifts, drivers who do not know how to use the equipment or refuse to do so and an overall lack of commitment to providing access. The system provides only about 1,400 rides a month according to the RTD. Handicapped activists charge that the low ridership is attributable to the system's poor management. There were and are people in the operation department (of the RTD) back there who were and are opposed to the idea of access from day one," Dennis Cannon, a Washington-based expert who helped to plan the RTD's access program in the 1970s said. But in the last six months, the RTD has made "a major effort" to overcome the problem, according to RTD General Manager John A. Dyer. The system boosted its fiscal year 1985 budget for handicapped service by $3 million, to $4.9 million, to provide for a program to educate drivers and upgrade the quality of equipment and service. In Oakland, half the city's 800 buses are lift-equipped and all of the Alameda — Contra Costa Transit District's new buses will be lift-equipped. Seattle’s Services In Seattle, 570 of 1,100 buses are accessible to the handicapped, providing about 5,900 rides a month. The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle also contracts with private groups to supply paratransit bus and half-fare cab service, providing a total of 8,400 rides a month in Denver. 432 of the city's 744 buses are lift- or ramp-equipped, providing more than 1,000 rides per month. The city also uses 13 vans and small buses in a paratransit system that provides 3,200 rides a month. In New York City, where an estimated 35% of all the transit passengers in the country use Metropolitan Transportation Authority vehicles each day. half of the city's 4,333 buses are fitted with lifts. The city has no figures on how many handicapped riders use the system, but one official calls the number minuscule. A new state law calls for $40 million over the next eight years to retrofit “in the neighborhood of 30" subway stops for handicapped use, according to a transit authority official. In addition the law will increase the percentage of lift-equipped buses to 65% of the fleet, as well as provide a paratransit system in the city by 1988. Minneapolis-St. Paul uses 45 paratransit buses and contracts with private cab companies to carry handicapped persons in all, the city provides 40.000 trips a month. None of Chicago's 2.400 regular buses are fitted with lifts. Instead the city provides 42 paratransit buses, which offer 12,000 rides a month. Additionally, 14 of the city's subway stops have been retrofitted for handicapped access and 300 of Chicago's 1,100 subway cars are accessible. If there is a diversity of approaches to the problem, there is also a diversity of views on the militant new tactics used by ADAPT and its supporters. The views of the handicapped people are all over the lot on what type of transport they'd like," Bob Batchelder, counsel for the APTA, said. But transit specialist Cannon, himself a wheelchair user, counters: “I'm talking to disabled people who wouldn't do what ADAPT does ... but who support what they are doing and think it needs being done." Whether ADAPT's controversial style will work remains an open question. While no negotiations are scheduled, ADAPT leaders vow to continue to harass association meetings. But in Los Angeles, the RTD's Dyer indicated that he hopes demonstrations will be replaced at next year's convention with “serious dialogue and discussion of the issues." "It’s a new thing for the disabled to see themselves with power," ADAPT's Auberger said, "but it's also a new experience for the powers that be." - ADAPT (119)
Billings Gazette 6/15/83 Disabled learn persuasion tactics by ROGER CLAWSON, of the Gazette Staff Disabled persons have a right to ride public buses, and — with a bit of political savvy - they can enforce that right. That was the message Wade Blank, a Denver handicapped association activist, brought the Montana Independent Living Project conference in Billings Tuesday. Blank said it would cost $180,000 to equip Billings’s Met transit system buses with wheelchair lifts. The federal government would pay 80 percent of that cost. Blank said public buildings have been made accessible to handicapped persons, public transportation should also be accessible. He outlined how his group, the Atlantis Community, fought to make the Denver bus system provide wheelchair lifts and suggested tactics to those who would make the Met accessible to handicapped: * Lobby for support. In Denver, Blank said, major churches endorsed the Atlantis crusade. * Build public awareness. Because handicapped people are unable to ride the buses, they are never seen by bus drivers or transit officials. Blank suggested putting a person in a wheelchair on every bus to spend the day riding and handing out literature calling for equal access. * Lawsuits may be needed to force public officials to explain how federal money, given with certain strings attached, has been spent. * Serve notice that you won’t be bought off with special transportation systems. “They do not run special buses for blacks,” Blank said, "they should not be allowed to segregate the handicapped.” Participants of the conference noted that the only transportation available to the handicapped in Billings is furnished by Special Transportation Inc. (STI), a private, non-profit corporation that provides transportation for the elderly and handicapped under contract. Use of STI by handicapped adults is confined to trips for medical appointments. - ADAPT (1)
[This continues on ADAPT 2 and 3, but the entire text has been included here in ADAPT 1 for easier reading.] [letterhead] Atlantis Community Inc 2965 west 11th avenue denver colo 80204 303 893 8040 [Headline] The Atlantis Story In June of 1975, Atlantis was born as an alternative to the lives that young disabled persons were being forced to endure in nursing homes and state institutions. Early in 1974, a group of concerned disabled people and able-bodied allies began educating themselves to the plight of the young disabled adult. They found that the majority of these young people (some as young as twelve) who were living in nursing homes were virtually trapped in a stagnating, paternalistic prison where civil rights were blatantly violated, medical care was poor and impersonal, and individual initiative and self actualization were hostilely discouraged. The group that later became Atlantis began looking for alternatives to the prejudiced, dehumanizing lives these young people were seemingly doomed to continue. The first attempt was to create a special youth program in a nursing home, the object of which was to provide normalizing educational and social experiences. The program was to a large degree successful in terms of individual liberation, but it soon became apparent that the humanistic goals of the Atlantis group were in direct conflict with the profit making motivation and paternalistic traditions of the nursing home industry. It was then that the Atlantis Early Action Project was conceived - early in 1975. The goals were clear: to allow every disabled individual, regardless of the extent of her/his disability, the same rights and responsibilities of their able bodied peers - the freedom to choose a lifestyle and fulfill personal goals in education, employment, and personal growth, and freedom from a punitive traditional system that stigmatizes the disabled and segregates them from the mainstream of society. The planning started in January of 1975. Public housing units were leased from the Denver Housing Authority in the Las Casitas Development. Funds from the Colorado Division of Vocational Rehabilitation were secured to renovate the apartments and make them accessible to wheelchairs. In June, the first eight residents moved in. All were former 'patients’ in nursing homes, all had the courage and the desire to live on the outside. In a little over two years, Atlantis has grown from eight residents and a volunteer staff to an attendant staff of forty individuals and forty participants/residents. Seventeen of the residents presently live in the Early Action site, which has become a transitional living center, the remainder live in private sector apartments throughout the city and receive services from Atlantis. Traditionally the young disabled person has been denied the right to an adequate education or meaningful employment and has been sent to nonaccredited, segregated ‘special’ schools or to sheltered workshops to count fish hooks or untangle old phone cords for five cents an hour. Those who reside in nursing homes are often provided with no programming at all. At Atlantis, we try to assist the individual in fulfilling whatever goals s/he outlines. At the present time, residents are attending Denver Opportunity School, Boettcher School, and several of the area colleges. In addition, a constitutional law suit has been initiated by an Atlantis resident in an attempt to change existing laws which deny equal educational opportunities to the disabled. With funds from the Denver Opportunity School, Atlantis operates an Adult Education Center which offers individualized courses in remedial basic skills, speech therapy, and Braille. In an employment and basic life enrichment program financed by the Colorado Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, Atlantis provides a variety of employment opportunities to disabled persons and seeks out employment possibilities in the Denver-Metro area. In keeping with the Atlantis Charter, fifty percent of all positions at Atlantis are occupied by disabled individuals. Our experience has shown that merely providing housing and attendant services does not fully equip the disabled person coming out of an institution to lead an independent, self-directed life. For this reason, special programs have been initiated to aid residents in acquiring the skills necessary to take responsibility for their own lives. Home Training Classes, where residents meet in seminars and share ideas and skills, are held to teach how to organize and maintain an apartment. A Consumer Advocate teaches residents how to perform their own consumer activities such as budgeting money, using a checking account, and buying food and clothing. Other advocacy services available include a twenty four hour a day Crisis Hotline, a Financial Coordinator who assists individuals in getting their public assistance benefits, a Housing Information Service, a Legal Advocacy Service, and a Counseling Referral Service. Disabled persons are not 'sick' people. They do not require a 24 hour a day medical staff of nurses and aides to supervise their personal needs and social activities. What is needed is a consistent source of reliable assistance when they want it. In an attempt to break the traditional concept of home health care - Atlantis hires a pool of professionals who are trained and supervised by a Rehabilitation R.N. Attendant assistance is scheduled as it fits into individual routines and responds to individualized needs. Emphasis in health care is on teaching people to monitor their own - to be aware of their particular needs and be capable of getting those needs filled either self—sufficiently or with assistance. Staff is available on a twenty four hour a day basis in case an emergency arises, and can be reached by a call to the Crisis Hotline. The resident is responsible for scheduling baths, meals, etc. There are no rules governing any individual's mobility or social life. We uphold the right of the disabled to take responsible control over their own lives. Disabled people do have special medical needs. Nurses, attendants and physicians who work with them should have this specialized knowledge. The Atlantis attendant staff is trained in areas of special health concern such as skin, bladder and bowel care, and routine medical needs. Atlantis makes full use of existing medical facilities, primarily the Denver General Health System. We are oriented toward rehabilitative activities and any person who has the desire for rehabilitation is given the opportunity to explore it. Many who were diagnosed at an early age as unrehabilitatable have shown tremendous progress when allowed access to therapists and equipment. It is our belief that any disabled person should have the right to choose where and how s/he wants to live. We believe that the same monies that are provided to house someone in an institution should be made available to those who wish to live independently. We are working to this end. At the present time, an institution in Colorado receives upwards of $600.00 a month in tax money to provide custodial care for a ‘patient’. That same person, once out of an institution, is eligible for maximum public assistance Payments of $402.00 a month to support her/himself and purchase attendant services. Many receive less than the full amount. We can find no valid justification for this huge discrepancy which results in the taxpayer supporting the highly lucrative nursing home industry and discourages the disabled and elderly from pursuing independent and meaningful lives. Our philosophy envelopes the ideas of individual liberty and opportunity, and we are aware of the process that must take place. Liberation from the stagnation of institutional life needs to be coupled with a viable process by which disabled persons can integrate themselves into society as self-fulfilled, independent citizens. It is our hope at Atlantis that by bringing disabled persons together, they can, through shared energy and experience, teach and support each other in achieving freedom and growth.